Birth & Fertility

The Role of a Doula

A birth doula nurtures and protects the mother’s memory of her birth experience, by providing unconditional and un-biased emotional, physical and informational support to the mother and her partner during the labor, delivery, and early postpartum periods. The birth doula’s role is to understand the physiology of birth and the emotional needs of the mother, partner and family. The birth doula will be your advocate, help you understand medical practices and procedures, benefits and risks of pain medications and interventions, make suggestions, and answer questions.

A postpartum doula offers education and non-judgmental support to help new parents develop their parenting skills during the postpartum period. The postpartum doula assists with newborn care, breastfeeding, preparing family meals, helping keep the household tidy, cleaning the newborns clothing, and other tasks that will help the family adjust to their new addition. The postpartum doula is trained to be aware of the signs of postpartum depression and will provide referrals as appropriate.

Infertility is becoming an increasingly common condition in developed countries. One in five couples experiences fertility problems while trying to conceive. The number of infertile women in the US aged 20-25 tripled during the last 30 years and sperm count has reduced 50% worldwide over the last 50 years. Of infertile men, 70% have “untreatable sub fertility,” meaning that they are not sterile, but have a low number or abnormal sperm. These progressive negative trends point to environmental factors that are having an impact on endocrine systems.

When approaching fertility treatment, naturopathic physicians focus on preventative health care and support of the body’s physiologic systems. Preventative medicine begins with the creation of healthy sperm and eggs to create a healthy pregnancy and child. They believe that by improving the environment in which a baby grows and develops, one can reduce the risk of asthma, allergies, birth defects, behavioral issues, and diseases in children.

Fertility support begins with preconception health care. This involves identifying and removing that which may be potentially harmful to the body while supporting the reproductive systems with food, nutrition, botanicals, and lifestyle habits to promote fertility. Preconception health care should begin three to four months prior to the desired conception time, as this is how long it takes to grow a healthy sperm and egg.

Currently health insurance providers do not view infertility as a disease, and therefore do not cover it. During the last 12 years, the number of artificial reproductive techniques has risen by 77%. Couples may spend, on average, $20,000 on in vitro fertilization. Naturopathic support including preconception health care is cost effective, safe, and only promotes the overall health of couples.